Monday, 8 September 2014

Bento Shopping in Singapore

This is a post that has been on my draft folder for sometime. I always get questions now and then on where to get bento stuff in Singapore, so I've always wanted to get this post done up. One of the reason I've been procrastinating is because I read in the news in July that Tokyu Hands will be opening in Singapore in September. Tokyu Hands is an amazing store, it's one of my must visit place every time I go to Japan, it is a lifestyle superstore and it carries quite a good range of bento gears. Therefore, I thought I should wait for it to open, as I wanted to include it in this post. However, I was rather disappointed after my visit last Sunday, bento stuff are very limited, more of that later in this post. They do have plenty of non-bento stuff that's fun to look at though.

Before I share the stores, please note that all the photos in this post were taken with my handphone or compact camera, so picture quality might be compromised. I will also update this post periodically should I have more current photos or discover more places selling bento stuffs worth mentioning.

One of my favourite store to visit is Daiso, a 100 yen store, but over here, everything is priced at SGD2. Click HERE for the current branches in Singapore. It's a great place to start, especially if you just started out in packing bento, the boxes are cute and affordable, as you can see from the photo above.

They also have lunch bags, as well as thermal lunch bags.

Bento utensils set.

Rice moulds for making sushi, sushi bamboo mats and nori punchers. I've did a review on their nori punchers a long time back, you can click HEREto check out that post. It's an old post, but I still hold the same opinion as what I wrote back then.

Bento picks and barans, they do have a wider variety sometimes.

Not exactly bento, but thought I'll share a picture of these silicone utensils as well. I know some people uses these silicon trays for freezing yoghurt, which is a great idea.

Food cups for separating your food in your bento box.

Drawing pens, where you can pour in some tomato sauce, chocolate sauce, etc, to draw on your bento.

The second place I'm sharing is a Japanese supermarket called Meidi-ya. It's located at Liang Court. The supermarket carries some bento boxes.

Thermal bento boxes and water bottles.

You can also find lots of Japanese ingredients there. I'm just focusing on these 3 types of furikake, as I've been asked questions about where to buy these before. The first one on the left is a pack of furikake, which contains tiny pink flowers, you can see the flowers in this bento HERE. The one in the middle is a sushi seasoning that can colour your rice pink, click HERE for an example of how my rice turned out. It's a alternative to sakura denbu, which can also colour your rice pink easily, my boys like the taste of this sushi seasoning better that sakura denbu. Lastly, the pack on the right is a pack of deco furi that contains sachets that can be used to colour your rice in four different colours, pink, orange, yellow and green. Daiso also sells something similar. (I'll update the photo of the one Daiso sells soon.)

At Liang Court, there is also a 100 yen shop called Nanairo, it's located at the same level as Meidi-ya. You can find some bento picks and bento boxes there, not much. Stocks are rather erratic though, not many bento picks when I took this photo, but sometimes they have more. I did not get a picture of the bento boxes as the staff was arranging that shelve. There were just a couple of Mickey Mouse bento boxes that day.

These onigiri bento boxes are from Shinzi Katoh, a famous artist in Japan. I own two such boxes from his collection, the designs are lovely.

The bookstore also sells bento books.

These are charaben books.

Finally, the bento products available at Tokyu Hands, which is located in the mall Westgate. The range here is quite miserable.

Quite a range of thermal bottles, and that's all they have for the bento section. Such a disappointment. The baking section was even more pathetic, I did not bother to take a photo. I was hoping to see the natural colourings, wax paper, cookie cutters and chocolate pens at the baking section but they could not be found. Hopefully they will expand and bring in more bento and baking items in the future. However, if you are not looking for bento stuff, Tokyu Hands is still worth a visit for other interesting products the store carries.

Tokyu Hands has another store atOrchard Central, the bento section there has slightly more variety. They have some bento tools there, not many though.

Bento boxes and thermal food jars.

They also have some cutleries, bento bags, barans, food cups and sandwich moulds.

Managed to snap some photos at Sanrio Gift Gate, so I'm updating . They sell Sanrio bento boxes, mainly Hello Kitty. There are quite a few branches, this one is at Parkway Parade.

There are thermal containers and bottles as well.

This is another shop, Character + Design, at Parkway Parade. There's one at Bugis Junction, but the last I checked, they no longer carries bento stuff.

Summiko Gurashi bento boxes.

Rilakkuma bento boxes.

This one is a $2 shop called Tokutokuya, at Kallang Leisure Mall. There's another branch at Changi City Point, but it's much smaller.

They have bento accessories that you can't find at Daiso. The picks and small cutters are worth buying.

Onigiri moulds, sausage cutters, nori punchers, etc.

Some Kumamon bento stuff.

And if you are looking for the wooden lunch plates that I used previously, I found some similar ones at Tokutokuya. These are not priced at $2 though.

Here's a couple more places you can find bento boxes in Singapore, list is non-exhaustive:

Character + Design, located at Parkway Parade. There's one at Bugis junction, but it no longer carries bento stuff when I went down last week. - Hello Kitty, Rilakkuma bento boxes and some bento tools.

I love this post! I love looking at super cute bento boxes at takashimaya. But i ended up buying many not so suitable bento boxes for me, i end up wasting more money than i expected. So i finally got my monbento from the website. $100 for bento, sauce cup and bag. Its worth it.

Thank you so much for this post! I found that Daiso and Takashimaya are the best places to buy bento stuff. Though Daiso is always out of stock for the picks. At which branch do you go shopping? Takashimaya has rediculously high prices so I ended up ordering online from international ebay sellers, rakuten, Qoo10 or bentousa.com.btw. one day I would love to meet up in Singapore! I adore your bento creations!